LSU’s bowl destination and opponent might just be locked up

LSU football is in the news every day, and the Bayou Bengal Briefing is here to keep you updated with the latest headlines five mornings a week. Join us every Monday through Friday for the biggest news on Tigers football, recruiting, baseball and more. Enjoy!

Sources say

According to a NOLA.com source, LSU looks poised to return to Orlando for the second bowl season in a row.

NOLA.com reported Thursday that LSU is expected to return to the Citrus Bowl for postseason play where it’ll face off against Michigan State. The Citrus Bowl has first dibs on SEC and Big 10 teams that don’t land in the New Year’s Six. With Auburn, Georgia and Alabama all expected to slot into NY6 games, LSU becomes the SEC’s highest-rated commodity. The same can be said about Michigan State, just sub Auburn, Georgia and Alabama for Wisconsin, Ohio State and Penn State.

This, of course, isn’t locked in. If Georgia or Auburn were to be blown out severely enough in the SEC Championship Game to fall out of New Year’s Six contention, the Citrus Bowl would take one of those squads, likely pushing LSU back to the Outback Bowl in Tampa. The same can be said of Ohio State and the Big 10. If the Buckeyes lose to Wisconsin by a large margin, they would be in play for the Citrus Bowl as well.

LSU ended last season in the Citrus Bowl, where the Tigers stymied Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Lamar Jackson and Louisville en route to a 29-9 victory.

10 years later

On this date 10 years ago, backup quarterback Ryan Perrilloux, senior running back Jacob Hester and All-America defenders Glenn Dorsey and Craig Steltz led LSU to a 21-14 victory over Tennessee in the 2007 SEC Championship Game.

One week removed from a triple-overtime loss to Arkansas, No. 5 LSU came back to defeat the Vols, securing Les Miles his first SEC title as coach at LSU. Then, the Tigers got help. Oklahoma upset No. 1 Missouri in the Big 12 championship and 4-7 Pittsburgh shocked No. 2 West Virginia with an upset in the Backyard Brawl. With No. 4 Georgia idle, those losses catapulted LSU up the BCS standings to No. 2, qualifying the Tigers for the BCS Championship in New Orleans.

Of course, the rest is history. LSU became the first-and-only two-loss team to win a BCS title. Miles didn’t leave for Michigan, contrary to popular reports. And the Tigers celebrated their second championship in less than a decade.

Celebrate while you can, LSU fans. There aren’t many days more memorable than this one.

Checking in with the ‘croots

The recruiting contact period is in full swing. SEC Country’s Sam Spiegelman has you covered with all the LSU recruiting news you need. Here’s a smattering of some headlines you might’ve missed Thursday:

1 year later

Last Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of LSU promoting Ed Orgeron to be the full-time head football coach. To mark the occasion, I dug back through Orgeron’s introductory press conference to find the promises he made and goals he set and compared them against how reality has gone.

For the most part, Orgeron hasn’t been far off from his goals, but he hasn’t been perfect either. He strove to hire the best offensive coordinator in the nation and hired a darn good one in Matt Canada. But Canada’s results haven’t matched what he achieved the season before at Pittsburgh when he was a finalist for the Broyles Award.

Orgeron set a goal to find a dual-threat quarterback, found one, then didn’t use him. He set the goal to put a wall around Louisiana in recruiting and managed to keep out everyone except Alabama.

At this point, it’s impossible to grade Orgeron’s legacy. It’s still too soon. But given the start he’s made, there’s reason to believe things will keep getting closer to his vision.

In praise of Derrius Guice

All week, I’ve been taking statistical looks at what made some of LSU’s greatest players great in 2017. After looking at Devin White and Greedy Williams earlier in the week, I spent Thursday looking at Derrius Guice.

Guice wasn’t as good in 2017 as he was in 2016. It would’ve been next to impossible for him to replicate that level of success as an every-down back without someone like Leonard Fournette diverting attention from him. But what he did thrive at was chunking out small fortunes worth of yards. Guice was deadly this season on carries that went between 10 and 29 yards, compared to 2016 when more than 40 percent of his yardage came on plays longer than 30 yards.

Being All-America-level great is hard to do two years in a row. But Guice was still consistently good in 2017. Good enough to be appreciated.

Today in made-up holidays

In incredibly long and confusing made-up holiday news, Dec. 1 is “Bifocals at the Monitor Liberation Day.” Before I clicked through to see what this meant, I assumed it had something to do with Benjamin Franklin. Yes. I’ve seen National Treasure.

But no. Apparently, this is a day to check your vision to see if you need bifocals for looking at your computer screen. As someone who proudly has 20-600 vision (that’s really bad), I appreciate this noble cause. But let’s be real: If you can’t see your computer, you have glasses already. No one can’t see a screen 14 inches from their face and thinks, “This is good.”

If you need glasses, get them. Glasses are cool now. I wear them occasionally. I’m more of a contact lenses guy, but I’ll rock a pair of frames from time to time. Be cool like me. Have bad vision. Join the club.

Miss a previous edition of the Bayou Bengal Briefing? Find every one of SEC Country’s daily LSU football columns right here.